Does anyone else find it odd that the new JotW does provide 'raid' utility, but does NOTHING for the ret paladin her/himself or even the same archetype as ret paladins?

Warriors get shouts that help them and other melee dps'ers. Enh shaman get UR and melee dps oriented totems. Not to mention if the ret paladin recieved something like SR, it would solve ALL their problems.

Ret pallies, a melee dps class, gets an ability that goes great with heavy casters and high mana pool players. Why? Every other class that has had their 'raid utility' polished has been given something they recieve as much benefit from as the rest of the archetypes.

The new JotW needs to be scraped; it's a VERY poor solution to ret paladin raid utility. There are classes that will provide mana batteries that benefit HEAVILY from the mana battery in the same raid. And considering of the 10 closest people to the ret paladin, only one other uses mana, Enh shaman, have shamanistic rage for themselves, and Unleashed rage for everyone else. (Not saying enh shaman are >>>> than ret paladin, just providing an example of raid utility logic.)

As for vengence, its a complete nerf unless they somehow up raw damage. Nothing's 'fun' about being nerfed and being unwanted for the entirety of an xpac again.

Yeah, they're changing a lot about all paladin abilities and how the class is played, but it still needs A LOT more. I'm not arguing for the die hard ret paladins, who will play the class regardless of everything. All three builds are still lack-luster when compared to other classes abilities and fun factor. I heartily agree with the poster who suggested a rework of all trees. As you've stated Mr. Ziebart, it IS blizz's class and it's APPARENT from their lack of attention on the forums. They asked for feedback, got an overwhelming amount, and decided to do nothing with regards to it. There were TONS of suggestions about ret mana issues and how worthless JotW is now, but GC simply gives the 'working as intended' spiel and "we're looking for other ways" AFTER they were giving 140 pages of ways.

The warrior and dk are shaping up to look like very involved classes to play, and even the enh shaman still has more to do than the ret pally; a glorified auto attack'er? I'm not arguing numbers, or who has more burst, or even who provides more raid utility. I'm looking at it from a play standpoint. I'd rather be gimp with TONS of things to do in a fight, rather than be OP and auto attacking. There are far too many fights where I'm stuck watching the mana bar to raise high enough to SoC so my auto attacks have a 'chance' to do more damage.

Reply